Back in 1954, the Eisenhower administration shut down its last remaining long-term immigration holding facility, an immigration prison on Ellis Island. The attorney general at the time, Herbert Brownwell, said that closing the off-shore prison—with an ironic view of the Statue of Liberty—would stand as an example of the “humane administration of the immigration laws.” Hard as it is to believe, the United States teetered on the verge of abolishing immigration prisons. Yet in the decades since this missed chance, a new consensus has emerged. Even today, something that liberals and [...]
Aaron Bobrow-Strain at Denver Law
In the pitched political battles over migration, binaries dominate: Migrants are good or bad, desirable or undesirable, insiders or outsiders. The seesaw of discussions presumes a stark distinction that doesn’t reflect human experience. When it comes to migration, easy answers are hard to come by. The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez: A Border Story, the latest book by Aaron Bobrow-Strain, doesn’t try for an easy answer. Instead, he gives us a complicated narrative of life in the borderlands of Arizona and Sonora, where hope tangles with despair, possibilities and pitfalls merge [...]
Supreme Court again tackles immigration preemption
By Kim Langona Today, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments to decide whether federal immigration law bars states from using certain work-related information in a criminal prosecution. In Kansas v. Garcia, No. 17-834, the Court will decide two questions. First, whether the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) expressly preempts states from prosecuting individuals using any information entered on or appended to the federal Form I-9 even though that information also appears in documents unrelated to verification of work authorization (state tax forms, leases, and credit [...]
Supreme Court to hear smuggling case
The United States Supreme Court recently agreed to decide the constitutionality of a federal law criminalizing migrant smuggling. United States v. Sineneng-Smith, No. 19-67. Late last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit concluded that this offense violates the First Amendment because it punishes a substantial amount of protected conduct. The anti-smuggling crime, Immigration and Nationality Act § 274(a)(1)(A)(iv), 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(1)(A)(iv), targets anyone who “encourages or induces an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United States, knowing or in [...]
Todd Miller at Denver Law
Another year of the Crimmigration Law & Policy Event Series at the University of Denver begins today. At noon, writer Todd Miller will speak about his latest book, Empire of Borders: The Expansion of the U.S. Border Around the World. Released in August, Empire of Borders turns the tables on migration rhetoric. Instead of focusing on the people who cross borders, Miller canvasses how border policing crosses borders. The event is sponsored by the DU Latin America Center and the Estlow Center of the Department of Media, Film & Journalism. [...]
Border realities
In the pitched battles over immigration, rhetorical binaries dominate. Republicans refer to migrants as aliens. Democrats trumpet innocent children traumatized by extremist Trump-era practices. Migrants are either good or they’re bad, and in the imaginations of politicians and pundits, it’s possible to put some people into one category and other people into the other. Where talking points end, laws and policies begin. Under the illusion that people can easily be boxed, immigration law assigns privileges and sets law enforcement priorities based on markers of undesirability. Born in [...]
Don’t tie immigration law reform to El Paso attack
When Donald Trump used the latest gun massacre to urge support for his pet project, clamping down on migration, no one could be surprised. His path to the presidency, like his time in office, is paved with anti-migrant fear-mongering. Already his reelection campaign has embraced the specter of a migrant invasion, and at a campaign rally he entertained fantasies about shooting migrants. Clearly, President Trump is driving the United States toward a new low. But disturbing as it is, in tying immigration law reform to domestic terrorism, he is not carving a new path. A quarter-century ago, the [...]
ICE family prison population shows slight upward tick
Despite President Trump’s virulent anti-migrant rhetoric and his administration’s heavy-handed approach to immigration law enforcement, immigration officials held only slightly more parents and children in its families-only facilities under his tenure as under his predecessor, President Obama. Government statistics I obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request show remarkable consistency in the number of people locked up in family immigration prisons from October 1, 2016 to September 24, 2018. In the two years covered in the released data, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement [...]